


Wasteland Drabbles

by s0ymilk



Category: Fallout 3
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Drabble Collection, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Writer's Block
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-22 21:37:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8302034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s0ymilk/pseuds/s0ymilk
Summary: Literally that. Drabbles from Charon's POV.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys. If you're here from Blackbird, I'M SORRY. This chapter is being a huge jerk and I'm really struggling with it. So, to get my creative juices flowing, I though doing some prompts to write drabbles would be fun. I offer them as appeasement for how long you're patiently waiting for the next Blackbird chapter. 
> 
> None of these are canon to Blackbird or AtD, they're just sort of random. They're also unbeta'd, so pardon any typos or mistakes.

  1. Outside the Window



 

It’s raining again.

The whole month has been rainy, now that he thinks about it. Charon thinks it’s around October now; in the summer, you can bear the rain, but with the temperature dropping so much at night, it’s better to just stay in and not risk hypothermia. Good rain coats that don’t make a lot of noise are hard to find these days.

The trees outside are just starting to lose the few leaves they’ve managed to sprout this year. They crunch and crackle underneath their feet as they make their way through the wasteland. Not good for stealth. There’s less concealment from the bushes and the brambles too, since they’re all going barren along with the trees.

Some side of him, long ago, wasn’t so pragmatic about fall. He’d liked it, once. Liked the ritual of digging out the old winter coat and the scarf his mother had made him one Christmas, the one that was lopsided and way too long. She’d gotten a ‘how-to-knit’ book from a garage sale or something - they’d always joked that Charon was the ‘first victim’ of her new hobby. He wore that scarf through countless mugs of Earl Grey tea and hot chocolate, through bad Christmas films and an even worse first date once when he was 17. He took it with him to China, only pulled it out once time to wrap around his neck after a particularly bad day at work.

They’re holded up in a side room off an old garage or something. The cement walls ensure they won’t be bothered; the hole in the tin roof lets them set up a fire without worry of getting smoked out. He’s stacked up pallets in the middle of the room so that the water dripping through the hole in the roof won’t get them damp while they’re sleeping.

His employer is huddled up in her sleeping bag, poking at the fire with a branch. Charon doesn’t know how she can stand to sit so close to the flames. She’s always complaining that she’s cold.

One of his employers had set himself on fire, once, sitting that close. Charon isn’t ashamed to say he reacted as slowly as possible in putting him out. That employer had walked around the rest of his days with third-degree burn scars all up his right side, and blamed Charon every day for it. Charon hadn’t cared; even at his worst, he hadn’t been nearly as creative in his punishments as the one before.

Some little part of him says that perhaps he doesn’t want this one to go up in flames.

“I hate this weather.” his employer sighs, stirring up the embers in the fire with her stick. “You can’t get anything done. Just have to sit here and be bored all day.”

“I like rainy weather.” Charon says suddenly. Then he frowns. Where had _that_ come from?

His employer looks at him, as surprised by the outburst as he was. She’d gotten used to his silence almost as quickly as the rest had, but she handled it differently. She still talked to him, for one thing. It didn’t seem to bother her to hold up one-sided conversations. The rest of his employers had used his silence as a fear mechanism towards their enemies; in turn, their ability to command him without stringing three words together made them seem more frightening.

“You seem like that type of person.” she says, after a pause. Surprisingly, it doesn’t sound condescending. Then she shivers and scoots a few inches closer to the fire.

 

\--

 

  1. Dancing



 

“Hey, Charon, look at this!”

Charon glances over to see the boy holding up a book, its pages torn and tattered. On it, a man and a woman are waltzing. The man is wearing a black tuxedo, his dark hair slicked back to better accentuate his handsome face. The woman is dressed in a fine white gown with drop earrings dangling from her earlobes. She and the man are looking into each other’s faces languidly as he leads her across the floor.

“Back in the old days, people used to have huge parties where they’d put on fancy clothes and do dances together. Man, I’ll bet that was something.” his employer sighs. He flips to another page in the book; on this page, a woman has her hands on her partner’s shoulders as he lifts her into the air. More pages, more dances, until the pages start to blur and lose focus from too much water damage. His employer closes the book gingerly and tucks it back on the shelf.

“We’ve lost so much since the Great War.” he says longingly. “All that knowledge and culture, just… erased. We’ll never get it back. It’s pretty sad.”

Not all of it, Charon thinks. There are people still alive today that remember those times. We have stories to tell.

Then he looks at the front of the dancing book, at the graceful way the man is stepping into his partner’s space, and turns away.

What a joke, he thinks. Stories to tell. Things to share.

The only thing Charon has to share is death. His whole life has been a lesson on killing faster, quieter, more effectively. He wouldn’t know the first thing about dancing. Not unless his objective was to snap his partner’s neck.

“We should go.” he says shortly. “We’re too unprotected here.”

The boy takes one last look at the book and then turns to follow.

 

\--

 

  1. Eye Contact



 

Her first step into the Ninth Circle turns every head in the joint.

It’s not that she’s terribly pretty or anything. Still, she’s a rarity, all the same. A smoothskin in Underworld. It’s basically Christmas.

Charon doesn’t expect much trouble from a newcomer armed with nothing but a pistol, but he keeps an eye on her nonetheless. Trouble always comes from the strangest places. He’s not interested in staring at her like the rest of the patrons are; instead, he keeps his eyes roving over the room and ignores her as she bellies up to the bar and orders a drink.

Thirty minutes later, he disappears into the other room to take a piss. Charon finds her waiting outside the door when he comes out.

“Excuse me, is that the bathroom?” she asks. Charon looks at her and gets a polite smile in return.

It’s not that he’s surprised she’s talking to him. Mostly, he’s just out of practice talking to anybody at all. Everybody here knows the score; it’s no use chatting up Charon, because all he’ll tell you to do is go see Ahzrukhal.

He doesn’t want to encourage conversation, so he just walks away. Charon thinks he hears a muttered, ‘Rude’, behind him.

She buys him a drink. The table next to him is empty (as always - nobody wants to be anywhere near him) - she brings the whiskey up, sets it on the table sharply, and gives him a pointed look. She’s not very pleased when it’s still sitting there an hour later, ice completely melted. Charon avoids the whole situation by refusing to look at her.

“I think you have yourself a new girlfriend.” Ahzrukhal remarks after the bar shuts for the night. “Every single motherfucker in Underworld was here tonight, and she gets interested in you. Pity for her.”

Fifty years of such remarks makes it easy to ignore. He flips the lock on the door and slips out to take his post, as he’s nearly every day for half a decade. It’s 1 AM now; he’ll stand watch for two hours, and then sleep from 3 to 5, which is the slowest part of the day in Underworld. At five, he’s up again to stand watch, though Ahzrukhal himself won’t stir until 10 o’clock or so.

Near the end of his sleep shift, somebody stirs him awake. He’s up on his feet, shotgun nestled in the crook of his shoulder before he even has a chance to see what it is that’s woken him.

It’s the smoothskin. She’s wearing different clothes than she’d had on in the bar; a billowy tank top and soft-looking pajama pants with rockets on them. A pistol hangs from a holster at her side, ruining the look.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” she says, holding her hands up in the universal sign of ‘I don’t want any trouble.’ “Why are you sleeping out here? Seems like it would be a better idea to nap, you know, on a bed?”

Charon lowers the shotgun and leans back against the door. The clock across the hall reads 4:55. Not much sleep lost, then. Though he’d had trouble falling asleep last night, for some reason, so he might need to catnap for a few minutes sometime today.

“You’re a regular chatty Cathy.” the smoothskin says sarcastically. But she apparently isn’t offended enough to leave, because she crosses to the wall a few feet away and slides down until she’s seated against it. She looks tired; dark circles ring her eyes, which she rubs at with a knuckle.   
  
“Do you mind if I hang out for a while? I have really bad insomnia. Makes it hard to sleep sometimes. Though if you’re that jumpy even when you’re sleeping, I bet you know all about insomnia, huh?”

She gets less and less deterred by Charon’s silence as she goes on.

“My name is Nina, by the way. I realized I never introduced myself. Your boss told me your name. Charon, right? That’s how you pronounce it? It’s an interesting name.”

The hall is silent but for her soft speech. People will start popping out around six AM - the few early birds who have to be to work by 7. Most won’t stir until nine or so. The bar will open back up at noon, to better exploit the heavy drinkers of their caps. Charon had expected to be out on a mission today, but the ghoul that had promised the job had to be forcibly removed from the premises last night, so Charon doesn’t expect him to return.

He fucking hates it when they vomit. At least this time it hadn’t stained his boots.

“I’m on my way to the Jefferson Memorial. Looking for my dad. I’d be there by now, too, if this stupid place wasn’t so overrun by Super Mutants.” she grumbles, wrapping her arms around her legs. “Everywhere you turn, there’s a Super Mutant waiting to bash your head in. I don’t know how you guys survive in here.”

She looks latina, he thinks, half at least, with with all the marked characteristics. Her hair is dark and thick; it had been up when she came in before, but now it hangs freely down her back. Long bangs fall forward to curtain her face. She keeps pushing them back but they always fall forward again. Her eyes are dark brown, set in an almond-coloured face with high cheekbones. Maybe she’s prettier than Charon had first thought. He’s not used to caring about things like that.

“At least everybody in this city is nice. Probably the nicest anybody’s been to me since I left the Vault. Well, except for your boss, if you don’t mind me saying. If he tries to grab my chest again I’m going to cram his whole fist into his nasal cavity. See if I won’t.” she pauses, lets out a jaw-cracking yawn, and climbs slowly to her feet. “Anyway, thanks for listening. I think I’m going to head back now.”

Ahzrukhal had told him not to talk to any of the customers, back when he was still laying ground rules for Charon’s work.

Technically, at this moment in time, she’s not a customer.

“Watch out for the Brotherhood of Steel.” he says. His voice, long unused, comes out raspier than usual.

Nina stops mid-stride and turns to look back at him confusedly. “What?”

“The Brotherhood of Steel.” he says again. “They come into the area now and again to push the Super Mutants back, but they’re not picky about targets. If they see you, they might shoot.”

Nina looks at him for a long moment, and then smiles. Her teeth are white and perfectly straight; a rarity in today’s world.   
  
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.” she says warmly. Then, “You have a nice voice. You should use it more often.”

Charon doesn’t find anything to say to that before she slips away.

 

\--

 

  1. Animal



 

“You sure there’s not anything here you need?” Gal asks as she surveys the storage closet. Charon shakes his head.

Three quarters of it is filled with booze. A few shelves hold odds and ends - lightbulbs, screws, tools, that kind of things. One half of a shelf holds a neat assortment of objects, seemingly random. A stone with an indent in one side, worn enough to nearly be polished. An old doll. The remains of a tattered scarf. And a little plastic food and water dish.

“Well, we might as well give all this to Greta. She won’t say no to free booze for Carol’s. Maybe snag a few night’s stay out of it, too.” Gal says, glancing at the liquor bottles stacked haphazardly along the shelves. Then she picks up the dish and inspects it. “What was this for?”

“A cat.” Charon says shortly. He doesn’t want to think about it, but the memory comes anyway.

He’d found the thing huddled under an old, dirty rag in the back alley area of the museum. Forgetting the bag of trash he’d had in one hand, he’d knelt and inspected it, nearly getting a face full of scratches in the process.

The cat had been a dark grey with bright yellow eyes, and impossibly tiny. Probably from malnutrition. It took it two week’s worth of food and water before he could go near it without getting clawed at. It never got very big, but what it lacked in size it made up in personality. It would come slinking out of the darkness every time Charon emerged from the back door to press up against his legs and beg for food. It especially liked iguana, he remembers, and brahmin milk.

He’d had an argument with Ahzrukhal one day. Not so much an argument as Charon suggesting that Ahzrukhal was the scum of the Earth, and Ahzrukhal not caring for that. Charon had just come back from taking Ahzrukhal’s latest conquest to Paradise Falls, so he was in a foul mood to begin with.

He found the cat lying in the back alley, placed strategically as if somebody wanted it to be found. Somebody had strangled it. Charon picked up the small, limp body, cradled it to his chest, and spent an extra 30 minutes digging it a grave in one of the old gardens that used to surround the museum.

“Are we done here?” he asks, turning away from the storage shed. Gal inspects the dish one last time and then sets it back down gently and follows him.

 

\--

 

  1. Friendship



 

If there’s one thing that Charon wishes he could change about his employer, it’s her strange obsession with Moira Brown. The woman is flat out crazy. The missions she sends his employer on are dangerous. And yet, she goes back day after day, so Moira can show her her ridiculous experiments, talk about her book, and generally make his job that much harder.

The only good part about it is that Moira herself has a mercenary watching over the shop. It’s nice to be able to walk in and get a nod from somebody who gets it. Very occasionally, they share long-suffering glances while his employer and Moira are in the process of making bad decisions. As frustrating as watching over his current employer is, he could only imagine what it’s like to have to babysit Moira full-time.

“So you’re saying it caused their heads to explode? That’s really unfortunate.” Moira is saying, a disappointed frown on her face. “Darn it, I really thought this one would work! Oh well, back to the drawing board I guess!” Moira waves the stick away, so his employer sticks it back in her pack. Charon attempts to convince her not to keep it by glaring harder, but it doesn’t work. Looks like he’s going to have to endure more brains being splattered on him in the name of ‘science’.

“So, what do you think about that mirelurk observation? It shouldn’t be too hard, just as long as you don’t get snipped in half!” Moira continues cheerfully, pulling out a map. His employer, completely unfazed by this comment, leans in to see what Moira is pointing at.   
Charon looks over at the mercenary and attempts to project as much suffering as possible into his gaze. The mercenary huffs and nods his sympathy.

 

-

 

6\. Addict

 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” his employer whines as he digs through his pack. Charon knows exactly what he’s looking for, and it’s a futile effort. He’d used up his last Jet inhaler half an hour ago. There’s nothing left to look for.

“Where the _fuck_ is all my JET!” he screams in frustration, flinging the pack away. It bursts open as it hits the ground, spilling medical supplies, tins of food, and clothing everywhere. Charon gets up silently to re-pack the bag.

“Ghoul,” his employer slurs, “Where the fuck is the Jet?”

Next to him, Big Ted rolls his eyes and slaps his employer on the back, shaking him somewhat out of his rage. “Give it a rest, Pete. You fucking took it all. There’s none left. So shut the hell up.”

Pete’s jet-glazed eyes go dark with rage. He’s a mean drunk and a meaner addict, despite being skinny as a rail. Sloppily, he climbs to his feet and stalks towards Charon, who is kneeling in the dust neatly stacking cans of Cram in the top of the pack.

Pete may be a mean addict, but he’s never been stupid. He’d kept Charon’s words close to his heart when Charon told him grudgingly that violence invalidated the contract. But this time, he’s too far gone. Letting out an angry grunt, he aims a kick right at Charon’s ribs with as much strength as he can muster. It drives all the wind from his lungs and knocks him on his ass. The bag slumps over, spilling things out of it once again.

“What the _fuck_ did you do with it, you stupid rotting corpse. Give me my fucking Jet.” Pete says, looming over Charon with clenched fists. His thick, dark beard is tangled, with something brown crusted in it. His eyes can barely focus properly.

Under some circumstances, Charon likes to get the death of his former employer over with as fast as possible. There are cases where somebody might step in to do something. Charon knows that this is not one of those cases, so he has time to do it right.

He starts by breaking every one of Pete’s fingers. Peter sobers up fast after the first snap, but his mad scrabbling doesn’t do much to help him get away. Then he drives a kick into his knee, and Pete goes down like a lamed horse. To his credit, he stills attempts to crawl away, though the pain of moving each finger slows him down.

Big Ted watches impassively as Charon unsheathes his combat knife and draws it across Pete’s throat. The man’s last sound is a gurgling, before he slumps to the ground, the light going out of his eyes. Charon wipes the knife off on his dirty shirt and re-sheathes it.

“About time you killed that stupid son of a bitch.” Ted remarks as Charon goes back to packing. “I don’t know how he never figured out that I was the one stealing all his Jet. Guess you weren’t of a mind to tell him.”

Ted pushes himself to his feet, jowls wiggling, and kicks Pete’s body over so he can go through his pockets. He pulls out Charon’s contract, waves it around a bit so Charon sees it, and then tucks it into his armour. “Was just thinking it was time to get me a helper.”

Ted lasts two more months before he slips up. He wasn’t particularly cruel to Charon, but Charon kills him anyway. Sometimes it takes them a while before they show their true colours. No reason to take a chance.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one of these is not completely miserable. Maybe I should just resign myself to the fact that Charon is a ball of angst and be okay with it. He's fun to write, anyway.

  1. Majority



Charon has always been a pessimist. Even back when he was still Chris Szalinski, his personal opinion was that most people were worth less than a pot to piss in (and he’s been many, many places where a pot to piss in was hard to find). 

He doesn’t know why he’s always felt this way. His parents certainly weren’t pessimists, and neither were his siblings. He  _ worshiped  _ Linda as he was growing up, Linda who always saw the good in everyone and made her decisions based on how she could best help other people. But he’s been proven right in basically every instance in his life, so he clings to his pessimism hard, like a lifeline. 

The majority of his employers have been, for the lack of a better word, shitheads. Charon thought for a long time that the worst thing that could happen to him was another drugged-out Raider employer with a mean streak. And then Ahzrukhal came along, and Charon realized that in thinking that, he’d let go of his pessimism just enough for the return to reality to be mind-numbingly painful. 

“The majority of people are sheep, Charon.” Ahzrukhal says to him one night, as he’s kicked back at one of the tables, sipping a whiskey. Charon is in his spot against the wall, doing his best to imitate a rock. He has this idea in his head that if he just doesn’t respond, Ahzrukhal will stop fucking talking to him. 

It hasn’t worked yet. 

“They’re just looking for a little bit of hope. Give it to ‘em, and you’ve got them in the palm of your hand.” the bar owner slurs. He holds up his empty glass and shakes it. The glass tinkles against the sides. Charon pushes off the wall, takes the glass from him, and brings it over to the bar for a refill. 

“You know all about that, don’t you? I can just imagine what made you give up your freedom. What was your hope for, Charon? A better world? You’ve always struck me as a dreamer.” 

Charon slams the glass down in front of Ahzrukhal pointedly and walks back to the wall. Despite his rough handling, none of the whiskey sloshes from the glass. Ahzrukhal doesn’t comment, just picks it up and takes a neat sip. 

Talking to Ahzrukhal never ends well. Ahzrukhal is a like a cat, cornering an injured bird. He lives for the torment, and his pleasure is only enhanced by attempts to fight back or flee. The problem is, even if the bird refuses to retaliate, Ahzrukhal takes pleasure in going for the kill. If he can’t tease a response out with his words, he’ll find another method to extract it. He doesn’t need to see the results of his torment on his victim’s face; he knows it’s there, either way.

“You know, when I think of sheep, the first thing that pops into my mind is that sweet little thing that stumbled in here yesterday.” he says musingly. One ravaged finger traces the top of the glass. “Family butchered by Super Mutants, escaping on her own with nothing but the clothes on her back. What a tragic story. I imagine she’s looking for a helping hand as she’s huddling in the corner of the bathroom, trying to sleep.” 

“So let Carol do it.” Charon says without thinking. He can’t help it. Even after 50 years of doing Ahzrukhal’s dirty work, he still feels like a fly caught in a web. Death comes for him, over and over again, but he can’t make his body lie still and accept it. It’s like he can’t help but struggle for release, even as he knows freedom will never come. 

The pessimist in him knows what’s coming. But some part of him still tries to stop it. 

“No, I think it’s best if we handle the matter ourselves. Go to - what was her name, you say? Sophia? Let her know that we have a spare room she might be interested in using. Just until she gets back on her feet.” Ahzrukhal smiles and tosses back the rest of the whiskey. “And don’t forget to smile, Charon. After all, it’s our duty to help the misfortunate, isn’t it?” 

This has happened so many times that he actually has a routine. First he picks the lock on Winthrop’s old storage closet and shuts himself in. As he sits on the ground among the tools and spare parts, the buzzing behind his eyes intensifies to a sharp throbbing, and then an overwhelming sense of pain. To his credit, he lasts longer every time. The first time, he’d given in and left the storage closet before his vision starting going dark. Now, he waits there, blind and deaf, world consumed in sharp pain and the endless echo of Ahzrukhal’s orders in his mind. 

When he comes to, the relief that unconsciousness had brought him dissipates quickly. His mouth is grimy and tastes like sawdust. His eyes throb. He pushes to his feet gingerly, stumbles into a shelf, and moves towards the door. Immediately, the pain lessens. With every step he takes towards his goal, a sense of quiet enters his mind. 

Ahzrukhal is right, of course. Sophia accepts his proposal with alarming innocence. Her steps towards the Ninth Circle are light, spirited. 

Hopeful. 

Silently, Charon follows. 

\--

  1. Missed Connections



The only sound in the metro tunnel is the slow drip of stagnant water from the ceiling. Shotgun at the ready, he makes his way through the tunnel silently, stopping occasionally to listen. 

A rustle sounds from behind him. Charon turns, butt of his weapon already nestled in the hollow of his shoulder, but it’s only a feral ghoul staggering down the tunnel. Not a threat. Charon lets it make its way by and then continues on. He’s nearly to the station, and from there it’s only a short walk back to Underworld. Not that he’s rushing. 

The feral ghoul ahead of him freezes in place and then twists its head to the side, as if listening intently. Without warning, it springs into a shambling run. Charon picks up his pace and follows it, but slows as he approaches the turn into the station. 

The sounds of agitated ferals ring through the open space. Charon flattens himself against the wall right next to the corner and peeks out cautiously. He’s more than willing to let the ferals take care of any threats that may be on the horizon, but it’s best to make sure that the threat doesn’t take care of  _ them  _ first and then mistake him for more of the same. 

Somebody curses, loud and creatively. Shots ring out inside the station; a few of the hissing ghouls are silenced. Charon can just make out a figure in the gloom, approached from three sides by half a dozen shambling corpses. 

He pushes off from the wall and rounds the corner, coming in at an angle. His first shot takes out the aggressive ghoul just in front. Successive blasts turn the ferals’ attention away from the figure trapped in their circle and towards him. They tilt their heads in confusion, still hissing, wondering dumbly why one of their own is turning on its kind. It gives him the time to pump three more loads of buckshot into the remaining ferals, leaving the young man in the center frightened, but unharmed. 

“Holy  _ shit,”  _ the young man says with feeling. He has a shallow cut across his forehead that’s still sluggishly leaking blood. His clothes are tattered and shabby; in his hands he clutches a battered hunting rifle. 

“You hurt?” Charon asks. The man looks at him, hands tightening on the rifle. Charon steps in and wrestles it away before the kid does something crazy like shoot his savior in the chest. 

“Hey -  _ hey!  _ Give that back!” the kid says angrily. Charon ignores him and unloads the hunting rifle. The young man makes a grab for it, but it’s half-hearted at best. 

“Bad form to shoot the person that just saved your ass.” Charon says to him irritably. “What the hell are you doing down here by yourself at 3 o’clock in the morning? Don’t you know feral ghouls are more active at night?” 

The kid looks down at the deal ferals scattered around him. He’s handsome for a smoothskin - sandy brown hair, unblemished skin, straight teeth. He has to be from a settlement somewhere; nobody that lives in the Wasteland regularly comes out looking that untarnished. 

“Is that what they are?” he asks nervously. “They look like zombies.” 

Charon ignores that comment and tosses the kid back his rifle. He’s willing to blame the ignorance on the lighting; he probably hasn’t seen Charon’s face yet. All the more reason to keep his ammo. 

“H-hey, where are you going?” the blond demands. 

“There’s a room just off the subway tunnel where you can stay for the night. Ferals are less active in the daytime, that’s when you should travel.” 

He doesn’t really know why he cares so much, other then that it seems like a waste to let a kid die just because he has no idea what he’s doing. 

The kid sighs, pushing his fingers through his dirty blond hair tiredly, but follows willingly enough. 

Charon leads them to the broken remains of a subway car and slips in alongside it. About ten feet down he hits a door; he whisks the key out of his pocket and unlocks it so he can slip inside. The kid approaches cautiously, peeking into the room before he commits to entering, but slides in all the same. Charon shuts and locks the door behind him and flips on the lightswitch. 

“Holy  _ shit! You’re a zombie too!”  _ Charon turns to find the kid has picked up a piece of rebar and is gripping it tightly in both hands, knuckles white. Kid’s got spunk, that’s for sure. He gives himself away by the trembling in his hands. 

“Did you crawl out from under a fucking rock?” Charon growls. “I’m a ghoul. Now stop fucking yelling unless you want every feral in the DC area scratching at our door.” 

Charn turns and surveys the maintenance room, reasonably sure the blond isn’t going to do anything with the piece of rebar. Everything looks just as he left it. He crosses to a tin box lying on a shelf in the corner, digs through it, and comes up with a crumpled pack of smokes, still half-full. Shoving one between his lips, he digs out a pack of matches from his pocket and lights it, sighing in relief. It would be too easy to just unhook his armour and take a load off for a while. Charon compromises, keeps the armour on, but drops his pack and his shotgun so he can take a seat on the floor and lean up against the wall. 

“I don’t think anybody knows this room is here, with the station car blocking the entrance like that. And I’ve got the only key. So we’re safe if you want to rest.” he says around the cigarette. The kid looks at him, clearly still suspicious, but sets the rebar down against the wall and starts to digging around in his backpack. He pulls out a dented can of potato crisps and pops the top off. 

“Thanks for the help. Sorry about, uh… you know. This is all really new to me.” he says, shoving a handful of crisps in his mouth. He offers the can to Charon, shrugging when Charon declines. 

“You from a settlement somewhere? Rivet City?” Charon asks. The cherry on his cigarette is all the way down to the filter, so he stubs it out and throws the pack back in the box. He’s not really a smoker, it’s just nice to have the option to sometimes. 

The blond shakes his head. “I’m from a Vault. 101.” 

Charon blinks at that statement. A  _ Vault?  _ Who the hell leaves a Vault for life in the Wasteland? 

“What are you doing all the way out here?” 

The Vaultie shrugs. Potato crisp can empty, he shoves it back into his pack and runs his hands through his hair again. “It’s a long story” he sighs. Then he looks back up at Charon, his gaze somewhat suspicious again. “Why are you helping me?” 

Charon resists the urge to roll his eyes. He applauds the suspicion, but if he’d had any evil designs he probably would have taken care of them between taking the kid’s gun and locking themselves into an isolated room with only one exit together. At this point it’s too little, too late. 

“Not everybody in the Wasteland likes seeing somebody get ripped to shreds and eaten. So just take the charity for what it is.”

The vaultie accepts that answer, but still looks suspicious. 

Despite trying valiantly to stay awake, the Vaultie falls asleep a few minutes later. The circles under his eyes tell Charon he hadn’t been sleeping all that well; probably too inexperienced to find a good place to rest, so he’s been sleeping with one eye open. Still, if he’s really from a Vault, he’s doing better than Charon would have expected. 

Just for something to do, Charon breaks his hunting rifle down, cleans it, and then reloads it. The thing is so gritty with dust that he’s surprised it even fired at all. Then he does the same with his shotgun. Finally, with nothing left to occupy his hands, he dozes on and off himself for a time, until he judges that the sun is well past up. 

“Hey. Vaultie.” Charon says softly. The kid, having slumped down from his resting against the wall to curl up on the floor, jerks violently and flings himself to his feet with a curse. He has a mouth on him, that’s for sure. The Vaultie relaxes when he realizes that it’s Charon speaking, and that he’s still in one piece. 

“I have to go. Got somewhere to be. You can stay here longer if you want, just make sure you lock up when you leave.” 

“You’re leaving?” the Vaultie asks, watching him as Charon shoulders his pack and picks up his shotgun. “Where are you going?” 

Charon frowns. “Nowhere you need to go.” he says shortly. An image of this kid bellied up to the bar in the Ninth Circle, talking to Ahzrukhal, makes his lip curl. 

He drops his key in the kid’s hand and turns for the door. Staying all night has pushed his luck a little bit, considering Ahzrukhal has him on a timeline, but it’s worth it to get a chance to rest. 

“Stay out of trouble, smoothskin.” he says, one hand on the door. Then, without waiting, he slips through the door and shuts it behind him. Charon waits to actually until he hears the soft ‘snick’ of the lock turning. 

He never sees the kid again after that day. Every time he leaves Underworld after that, he stops and picks the lock to the maintenance room, but it’s always empty. 

\--

  1. Sweet



“Snack cake? What the heck is a snack cake?” 101 picks up the little squashed box and examines the writing on top curiously. “And why is the lad fancy?” 

Charon just -  _ just -  _ refrains from rolling his eyes. “It’s a cake, only snack size. Just eat it.” 

101 pulls the side of the box open and slides out the plastic-wrapped little cakes. The icing is looking a little stale, but these things had always had enough preservatives to last an atomic war. Just, nobody thought they’d actually  _ need  _ to. All the better for them; it’s not like sugar cane is easy to come by in a wasteland. 

101 brings the cake to her mouth tentatively and takes a small bite. Then, eyes wide, she takes a bigger one. The small cake is quickly demolished; 101 even licks her fingers afterwards to catch every crumb. 

“It’s so good!” she says incredulously. “It tastes like… like…” She stops and thinks about it with a frown. Words to describe the little pastry seem to elude her. 

“Like a cake?” Charon asks, not without a tinge of humour. Sure, he’d been hoping for a good response - nobody hands out a package of snack cakes nowadays for free, after all, you can get upwards of 30 caps for them in most towns - but this is a little over the top. 

“No, not at all. Not like any cake  _ I’ve  _ ever had.” she says musingly. “More like… like a Nuka-cola! Only… different. Not fizzy. And the flavour isn’t the same.” 

What did she mean, not like any cake she’d ever had? What kind of cakes did they feed people in the Vault? And how is a snack cake even vaguely like a Nuka-cola? 

“A Nuka-cola and a snack cake are nothing alike. They both have sugar, but that’s the only similarity.” Charon tells her gruffly. 101 looks down at the second cake in wonder. 

“ _ Sugar. This  _ is sugar?” she says, rolling the plastic between her fingers. “ _ That’s  _ why it tastes different! We didn’t have sugar in 101 - the Overseer said it was because there’s no nutritional value in it. All our cakes were protein-based.” 

That sounds… vaguely disgusting. Charon’s no fan of most desserts, but even he likes the occasional slice of apple pie, and his mother had baked a mean lemon pound cake. He can’t imagine growing up without sugar.    
  
“Eat the other one.” he suggests. 101 glances up at him, and then breaks a piece off and nibbles at it. It’s clear she intends to make it last as long as possible. “People don’t eat sugar for the nutritional value. They eat it because they enjoy it.” 

101 looks down at the little vanilla cake in her hand and then carefully breaks it in half. She holds one of the pieces out to Charon with a small smile. He frowns down at it. 

“No thanks.” he says shortly. She doesn’t reply, just holds it out silently until he gives in and takes it from her. His fingers just brush hers as he accepts the sweet. 

“I don’t share because I have to, I share because I enjoy it.” she says with a foxy grin. Charon snorts at the twisting of his words, but eats the cake anyway. Even despite the slight plastic-ey, stale taste, he finds it’s one of the better pieces of cake he’s ever had. 

\--

  1. Dread



The worse part of changing employers is the fear. 

At 221 years old, he’s done it several times now. Dozens. Raiders, merchants, businessman, the military, he’s had an employer from every part of the shitbag rainbow. Some, like anything else in life, are worse than others. Some are - well, not  _ pleasant,  _ but in some ways bearable. 

The problem is that his… unique condition… means that sometimes the true colors don’t show through right away. 

Take Eddy, for example. Eddy had been middle-aged, a little portly, husband to a pretty wife and father to a young, strapping son. Farmers, out on the edge of nowhere. Eddy had bought Charon’s contract from a merchant caravan to work as a farmhand. His wife, Susan, didn’t speak to Charon once the entire six months he’d been with them. George, the boy, was at first equally as suspicious, but as happens to all kids, his curiousity got the better of him. 

When the raiders came, Eddy was the first one to hide. His round stomach, the result of too much beer and laughter, quivered in fear as he abandoned his pretty wife and young, strapping son to fend for themselves. After they were shot, Eddy had come crawling out, contract in hand, begging for a trade. Charon’s contract for his life. 

What else were the raiders supposed to do? They took the contract, nodded at each other, and shot Eddy through the head. No matter how much he’d tried to avoid it, Eddy had died right besides his family. 

Ahzrukhal was probably the best example. A smooth-talking, confident ghoul - at the time a traveling businessman. He was plying miracle elixirs when he met Charon, west of the Capital Wasteland. To look at him, you’d see nothing more than a charming middle-aged ghoul with a charismatic smile and exotic, upturned eyes. 

Ahzrukhal left a trail of bodies a mile long behind him as he worked his way east selling that elixir. It took each ghoul the better part of a week to drop dead from the mixture; whether the hallucinogens actually convinced them they were cured of being ghouls, Charon didn’t know. Maybe they passed from the world happy to be whole again. The worst part was, as suspicious as Charon was of anybody with a pulse at that point, even  _ he  _ had been convinced that Ahzrukhal believed in his little miracle tonics. 

Ahzrukhal had known it, too. Laughed about it. Charon vowed he’d never make that mistake again. 

Point is, whether they admit it to themselves, like Ahzrukhal, or they pretend to not know, like Eddy, the vast majority of the human population is scum. And Charon’s lucky break is that every time he gets a new employer, he gets to play the guessing game of where this new one falls on the scale. That fear is the worst part of his existence. The evil you know…Charon is always a bigger fan of the evil you know. 

It’s just that… that this one is a girl. 

That shouldn’t rightfully make any difference, and he’s seen enough to know that it doesn’t, but Charon is maybe too old-fashioned to let go of all his notions. She’s a girl, and so he’s struggling to be as cynical as usual. 

That still doesn’t mean he wants to take his  _ clothes off. _

“Are you telling me...that the majority of your masters allowed you to walk around with serious, possibly life-threatening injuries, so that they would be SAFER?”

She sounds so genuinely, incredibly  _ surprised  _ as she says it. He can’t help but look at her dirty face, locks of white-blonde hair tumbling down around it from the disarray of her ponytail. She’s either a damn good actor, or really naive. Her proficiency with a rifle had him guessing the former, and yet…

...and yet, he’s not so sure.

“Yes.” he says, because what else is there to say? 

Gal shakes her head and pushes to her feet. He tries not to stiffen as she moves out of his sight, but it’s not in his nature to let people behind him when he’s unarmoured, unarmed, and wounded. 

“I think I can lift your shirt over the rebar, which'll be easier than cutting it off.” she tells him. “Hey, it's good we bought you a spare set of clothes, huh?”

Not laughing at his employer’s stupid jokes is one way of rebelling that Charon’s always liked to utilize. The funnier they think they are, the more off-guard they’re thrown when their humor elicits no response. Pleasure is in the little things, for him. 

He finds his shirt being tugged up his torso much sooner than he would have liked. It’s a supremely alien feeling. When was the last time that somebody else had undressed him? Certainly not since the Great War. He doesn’t even undress himself that often, just when he’s in Underworld and a customary scrubdown is necessary. He doesn’t feel a single finger on his skin (not surprising), but the ghost of her is there just over his shoulder, radiating heat and life. She lets go of the shirt and he realizes she is giving him a command. 

“This is unnecessary. I am able to tend the wound without aid.” he says automatically. 

“You can't even reach it, and if you pull it out at that angle, it'll cause more damage. Lay down and let me do it, I'll make it quick.”

Clearly, she doesn’t have much experiencing administering self-aid. All he needs is an adjustable wrench or a pair of pliers and some way to attach them to something stable. Duct tape the wrench to a heavy desk or a piece of machinery, get the tool gripped snug on the rebar (he’s got surprising flexibility, no trouble bending his arm back to do such a thing), and yank the whole piece out in one swift move. Child’s work. 

Charon understands in some part of his brain, as he’s following her order and laying down, that working through this scenario is his subconscious way of ignoring the whole situation. Well, he can’t be fucking blamed, because he’s literally shirtless with a piece of rebar in his back, lying on a mattress in the middle of DC with his employer right next to him. Nobody is keeping watch. If somebody picks this moment to show up, he’s going to lose precious time springing to his feet and grabbing for his shotgun because he’s going to have to be careful not to hit her and even a split second is the difference between life and death in the Capital Wasteland. 

So maybe he’s a little tense. Maybe he’s coiled tighter than a broken spring. It’s not his damn fault. 

The med-x is seeping through the upper part of his back. It tingles in a faintly unpleasant way, then fades as the anesthetic works its magic. He hates anesthetic. If you can’t feel your muscles properly, your reaction times are thrown off. He’d rather do the whole thing without the med-x. 

“I’m going to pull it out now.” she says in warning. Charon grits his teeth and says nothing. 

The feel of her hand splayed across his back is… less unpleasant than he’d been expecting. If she’d been looking closely, she’d have seen by the scars all over his skin that he didn’t need any help taking care of himself. She’s pressing down on an old knife wound right now he’d gotten in the Ninth Circle. He’d spent an agonizing three hours stitching it up while on watch - sewing skin with his hand upside down on his own back isn’t his forte. 

The rebar is yanked out. Charon groans into the mattress. The following process is familiar - staunch the wound, disinfect, continue applying pressure on top of the wound as the stimpacks knit the flesh together. What he doesn’t really expect is the other hand resting lightly on his shoulder blade, serving no other purpose than to be there. Perhaps unconsciously, the thumb of that hand rubs back and forth slowly. 

The worst part about Charon’s existence is fear. Not just fear, but uncertainty. Doubt. That long, slow wait for the other shoe to drop.See, he can be one hundred percent certain that most of his employers are scumbags. They’ll break down one day and ask him to commit some horrible act, or throw him to the dogs to save their own skin, or make him complicit somehow in their great acts of evil against anything and everything. The security in that knowledge is, in a lot of ways, preferable over fear of the unknown. 

So, he thinks as he hurriedly tugs his shirt back on and redoes the buckles to his chestplate, the worst thing that could possibly happen to him is to finally get an employer that really makes him  _ doubt  _ his 200 year convictions. When the other shoe finally does drop, the small bit of hope brought on by a comforting hand and a treated wound is just going to make it that much worse. 


	3. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not dead! Just... life happens, sometimes. It's still happening, but I am trying as hard as I can to find an update for those of you waiting on BB. Thank you so much for your patience and kind words. 
> 
> Here you have an attempt by a drunk s0ymilk at philosophy, some domestic schm00p, and another short look at AtD from Charon's eyes (which are so fun to write, you're gonna see more of those).

  1. Stars



“Mr. Brock? Is what you told us today about stars really true?” 

Mr. Brock looks down at little Galina, pen posed in the air above a freshly-marked paper. Endless curiousity, this one. She was always fidgeting in class, doodling or tinkering with her Pipboy or or writing something-or-other in her notebooks. But Brock could never catch her off guard, no matter how many questions he threw her way. She was cleverer than any 12 year-old had a right to be. 

“You mean, about them being made of gas?” he asks. Gal nods seriously. 

“Well, yes. It’s all true. I know it sounds far-fetched, but stars really are just big atom-smashing machines in space. Just like our sun - it’s just another star, albeit one our planet orbits around.” 

Gal takes in this knowledge quietly. He can see her sift it through her brain, shape it like putty until it’s the right shape to slot into her view of the world. 

“...how do you know stars even exist anymore? Nobody in the Vault has seen one for hundreds of years, right? Maybe they’re all burnt out.”

Brock chuckles at that. 

“Well, honey, if the stars burnt out we’d know. The sun gives us not only light, but heat as well. Without its heat, we’d be a lot colder in here, let me tell you. Besides, the Great War may have destroyed things here on Earth, but we don’t have enough power to touch space. Not yet, maybe not ever. We humans are pretty small in the grand scheme of things.” 

He shuffles through his slides, plucks one out, and slides it into the projector. Gal turns her attention to the screen as a still of space flutters to life in black and white. It doesn’t show anything but stars and a half-moon, but it’s still pretty amazing to anyone that’s lived their whole life underground. 

“Wow…” Gal says, with real surprise in her voice. “I hope I get to see stars for real one day.” 

Unexpectedly, Brock feels a pang of something melancholy in his chest. He remembers having those feelings as a child, feelings of doing more than just surviving each day in Vault 101. He’d dreamed of the world outside, of going out into it and exploring. Obviously, it had never happened. And he’s content, but…

“Maybe you will, Gal. If anybody’s going to do it, it’s going to be you.” 

He means that. There’s something about Gal, about Gal and her father. They don’t quite fit into the puzzle that is Vault 101, like they’re pieces brought over from the wrong box and shoved hastily into place. It’s not hard to see, even at 12, that Gal is frustrated with this slow, monotonous life. She’ll be a hellcat by the time she’s 16, that’s for sure. Inexplicably, Brock looks forward to it. 

\--

The little dipper. Ursa major. Cassiopeia. Aquarius. 

Easier to see now than they were one hundred, even fifty years ago. Fifty years ago, DC was still the victim of light pollution, enough to mask the stars at night. Now, they shine out as bright as they did on his family’s back forty in Texas when he was a young kid. 

In his survival training, he’d been taught to navigate by the stars. He’d done reading on it before his deployment to China, just in case. Never know when you might end up in a survival situation without a compass. He’d never had to use it, but he still remembers. 

Weird to think of, now, that he could have ever flown halfway across the world. What a strange idea, that you could visit a whole different continent in less than 24 hours traveling time. Hell, they’d put a man on the  _ moon.  _ The footsteps were still up there, if scientists were to be believed. 

Charon sweeps his gaze across the dark ground to each side of the collapsed bridge, but all is still. This is Super Mutant country - they don’t care about ghouls much, but they keep almost everything else away. It gives him a chance to stop and breathe a little without flinching every time he hears something shuffle or scrape. 

When he was a kid, he and his older siblings would lay out in the fields and watch the stars. Sometimes they’d pitch tents and camp, never so far that mom and dad couldn’t see, but alone enough to feel like grown-ups, staying the night all on their own. He’d missed this view when he’d moved to DC. Couldn’t see the stars there. Not like in Texas. 

He wonders absently if anybody else in this forsaken hellhole stops to look at them. Doesn’t seem like it - most people are either too worried about getting by, or they don’t give a shit about something as philosophical as stars. It makes him feel pretty damn alone, to think that nobody else is out there looking at them. 

Well, maybe someone is. Somebody out there is looking at the same little dot of light he is and marveling at them. He’d like to meet somebody else that thinks stars are worth looking at. 

Yeah, right. Charon rolls his eyes at himself, turns his attention back to his surroundings. With the type of people he runs with, that’s never going to happen. Time to quit the damn daydreaming and get back to business. He rolls to his feet in one fluid movement, shotgun in hand, and slips off into the night. 

\--

Gal curls up on the side of the common house, sighing in relief at the cool breeze across her forehead. She’s been sick with fever for, what, a week now? Only in the past few hours has she felt lucid enough to do anything besides sweat, drink water, and relieve herself. It feels nice to be out in the open air, looking up at the sky. 

Mr. Brock had told her all about the stars when she was a kid. How damn cool, to think that they were hundreds of thousands of miles away, springing into existence and snuffing out like candles even as the Earth was destroying itself in nuclear war. 

Is anybody else looking up at them, she wonders? Maybe she’s the weird one, to find them so fascinating. Maybe it’s strange to realize how small she is in the universe, and to find that comforting. Or maybe not. 

She takes one last look, and lets her eyes flutter shut. They’re not going anywhere. Even in the day, when she can’t see them, they’ll still be there. 

\--

  1. This Old House



“Charon! You forgot the pans!” 

Gal looks down at the pile of cookware left in one of the cupboards with a scowl. Where the hell are they going to put those? It’s bad enough hauling all the rest of their stuff across town as it is, and that’s all in boxes already. She doesn’t want to make any more trips than necessary. 

Charon appears up the stairs, a box in hand. He glances over the railing at her and then carefully makes his way down to the first floor, displacing a fidgeting Wadsworth and the foot of the staircase. Wadsworth isn’t enjoying the change in scenery. Well, he’ll feel more settled once he’s in their new home. 

Once Charon has set the box down, Gal picks up a skillet and brandishes it at him. 

“The pans got left out! Where are we going to put them?” 

Charon dodges an attempt to thump him in the chest with the cookware, grabs her wrist, and pries the skillet from her fingers, his mouth quirked in amusement. Gal lets him, but the scowl doesn’t drop from her face. 

“Gal. Relax. I left the pans out so we could make lunch. Stop worrying so much.” 

Lunch?  _ Lunch?  _

“Why would we make lunch when we’re in the middle of moving our entire life across Megaton and into a new house?” she hisses, reaching for the pan. Charon hoists it above his head, safely out of reach, and wraps his gnarled fingers around the front of her blouse. With a yank, he pulls her to him and ducks down. Gal tries to stay angry as Charon kisses her, but it’s only one long moment before she sighs and wraps her arms around his waist. She’ll  _ never  _ get tired of this. 

“You’re right.” Charon says when he finally pulls back from ravaging her senseless. “We’ll go eat lunch at Gob’s, and I’ll put the pans away before you have a fit. Okay?” 

“Okay,” she says dreamily. Charon picks up the pile of cookware, tugs open a box on the counter, and carefully slots the pans into a space that’s exactly the right size and shape for them. He’d had space already made for them the whole time. Jerk. 

“Are you ever less than a total perfectionist when it comes to packing?” Gal asks, recalling the many times in their relationship he’d surreptitiously stolen her pack and reorganized it while he thought she wasn’t looking. Charon shoots her an amused look before carefully replacing the lid on the box and turning to crowd her into the kitchen counter. His hands wrap around her hips and squeeze lightly. 

“I thought you liked my ability to fit large things into small spaces.” he says in a low voice. Gal shivers when his lips brush the crook of her neck. 

“You know,” she says thoughtfully, “I think we might have some extra time penciled in to our calendar today. Maybe we should say goodbye to the house in a proper fashion.”

“I like that idea.” Charon says, and boosts her onto the counter. 

\--

  1. Beginning



“Did you hear a smoothskin showed up today?” 

“A smoothskin?  _ Here? _ ” 

Even if Charon’s hearing wasn’t good enough to hear what the trio of women was gossiping about, the way Ahzrukhal’s shoulders straighten would tell him something is going on. Ahruzkhal drifts closer to the giggling ghoulettes under the premise of wiping down the bar. Clearly, he likes what he hears - his eyes drift over to lock on Charon’s. When he’s sure he has Charon’s attention, he winks. 

Charon lets his fingers tighten on his bicep a little, but cuts off his reaction there. No reason to let the bastard know he’s gotten under his skin. 

Sounds like she’s staying at Carol’s, so there’s a chance Carol will warn her off and the smoothskin will never step foot in here. That’s the hope, anyway. 

His faint hope gets smashed into pieces when the front door opens a few hours later. Silhouetted in the doorway is a pale-skinned human with white-blonde hair, wearing a faded button-down and a pair of torn-up jeans. She stops in the doorway to take in the scene, but doesn’t pause too long before ducking in and letting the door shut behind her. 

The bar is already mostly empty, it being past one, so when the chatter stops at the sight of her, it leaves a silent room in its wake. The smoothskin braves it gamely as she steps up to the bar and orders her drink. 

Small, decently muscular for someone of her stature. She’s been well-fed from the sight of it, but lost some weight recently. Settlement-born turned wanderer, maybe. She’s got a pistol tucked into the back of her jeans, nothing else except maybe a boot knife, which he wouldn’t be able to see. Smart - she’s not trusting enough to go without protection in an unfamiliar settlement, but she knows to keep it quiet. Too maybe wasteland-crazy people come through here with their rifles on display and get themselves blown to kingdom come. 

Ahzrukhal lets his polite face slip into a leer as he watches her toss back her first drink, but the easy smile is back in place by the time she looks up. Disgusting. The smoothskin orders another drink and takes it with her to settle at a table. 

Maybe she’ll only stay a day. Place to sleep, a couple drinks, and then back on the road. Charon looks at the dark circles under her eyes, the dirt caked on her neck, and doubts it. She looks like she needs a break, and she’s decided to take it here. Great. 

His attention is pulled away by another patron stumbling in through the door. Patchwork. Charon had hoped after the last time he’d thrown him out on his ass, the ghoul would stay away for a while. 

Patchwork stumbles up to the counter and slaps some caps down. Ahrukhal, unsurprisingly, sneers at the meager offering and makes a dismissive gesture. Charon stays on the wall, hoping against hope that Patchwork will get the hint and leave himself. 

He doesn’t. With an internal groan, Charon pushes off the wall and stalks over at Ahzrukhal’s impatient gesture. Without a look at his employer, Charon grabs Patchwork by the arm and manhandles him to the door. Patchwork had swung at him once; after the black eye he’d gotten for his trouble, he’d never tried again. Charon kicks the front door open, shoves him out, and chances a hard glare in his direction when Patchwork stumbles to his knees and gives Charon a pleading look. One of these days, Ahzrukhal is gonna get tired of dealing with the drunkard and make Charon do something he really doesn’t want to do. 

The scene is par for the course in the Ninth Circle. Nobody bothers watching the spectacle except the smoothskin, who looks vaguely uncomfortable and also way too curious. Charon makes sure to look firmly in any direction but hers before she gets any ideas. Thankfully, after she finishes her second drink she’s out the door. 

_ Go home.  _ He thinks in her direction as she ducks out of sight.  _ Find somewhere else to get your drinks. Go settle down in Rivet City and don’t fucking come back.  _

“She’s a pretty one.” Ahzrukhal says conversationally a couple hours later, as he’s washing glasses. Charon doesn’t let the comment provoke him at all. His motions are fluid as he gathers half-consumed drinks and trash off the tables and kicks chairs into the right positions. When he takes the glasses to the bar, Ahzrukhal’s greasy smile tells him he’s not going to let this go so easily. 

“What did you think of her?” his employer asks, faux-innocent. Charon dumps the glasses into the sink and snatches up the broom. 

“Came in with a pistol under her shirt. Probably came from Megaton or Rivet City. Heard she was carrying salvage when she showed up.” 

Ahzrukhal huffs a laugh at his pragmatic description. 

“I’ll never understand your lack of a libido, my friend.” the word makes Charon’s knuckles go white around the broom as he sweeps. “I’ll say for myself, I’m less interested in minute details like what she brought with her than I am in...other aspects of her person.” 

“That’s because you’re a sleazy bastard.” Charon snaps finally, unable to keep his temper under wraps any longer. Ahzrukhal smiles at him good-naturedly, seeming to take no offense at the outburst. That’s not a good sign. 

“We’re a little bit behind on profits this month.” the ghoul continues in a seeming non-sequitur. He’s finished washing and drying the glasses and is inspecting his nails lightly (or what’s left of them). Charon finishes with the sweeping and takes the broom back up to the bar. 

“We may have to find some alternative methods of making money this month to make up for it. I know you enjoy stepping outside the bounds of your normal duties.” Ahzrukhal’s smile this time is as sharp as broken glass. “Ruminate on it, will you?” 

\--

This is it, then. 

“I’m here to see Ahzrukhal.” the smoothskin says, her neck bent nearly in half so she can look up at him. She looks a bit nervous to be this close to him, but she’s tamping down on most of it and coming off assertive. Impressive. 

He’d gotten Willow to drop by Carol’s this morning, and Willow had come back with good news.  _ Looks like she’s packing up to get on the road. Wasn’t there when I was in, though.  _ Against his better instincts, he’d chosen to take that as a good sign. Now she’s here for who knows what reason, knocking on the door to the dragon’s lair. 

Well, what the hell can he do? He daydreams momentarily of grabbing her around the neck, throwing her up against a wall a few times to see if that will scare her off. Too bad Ahzrukhal gave him explicit orders to be nice to the customers after the last time he did it. 

What can he do? With a short nod, Charon moves out of the way. Maybe Ahzrukhal will change his mind. Maybe she’ll buy a couple bottles of liquor or some jet and then hightail it out of here. 

Maybe. 

Maybe. 

Or maybe not. 

The wait is probably no more than twenty minutes, but it’s a tense wait. He isn’t allowed to eavesdrop on Ahzrukhal’s conversations, which would be a bogus order except that with the door closed, he can’t ‘accidentally’ hear anything anyway. So he waits, fingers drumming against his thigh, until the door behind him opens again.

It’s not Ahzrukhal - it’s the smoothskin, looking less assertive and more tentative this time around. She’s got something in her hand - when Charon looks down, he freezes in place at the sight of that familiar folded piece of thick paper. 

His contract. 

Ahzrukhal had… sold it? He’d talked about doing so a few times recently, but Charon didn’t think he actually  _ would.  _ He’s been breaking fingers and tossing out drunks for Ahzrukhal for so long, Charon’s not sure he even remembers what it’s like to have somebody else hold his contract. Sure, in a steady place like Underworld he’s all but useless, but the contract has never been just about usefulness to Ahzrukhal. 

Charon’s eyes flick from the paper to his new employer. Something hot and dark starts to unfurl in his chest. 

“I’m your new employer.” she says redundantly. Charon barely hears her. 

“Please, wait here. I must take care of something.” Charon says carefully. He only has one shot at this. He’s got to play it right, or he’ll lose the chance forever. 

Blank-faced, he turns and heads into the Ninth Circle. Ahzrukhal looks up from the bar, and that self-satisfied smirk on his face stirs up the same loathing as it had before, but Charon doesn’t let it touch his face. He just approaches the bar quietly. 

“Here to say goodbye to Uncle Ahzrukhal, Charon?” the man says through his smirk. 

“Yes.” Charon says. The moment of truth. 

With as little hesitation and as much speed as he’s capable of, he rips his shotgun from his back. He doesn’t even have to aim at this distance, just settles the shotgun into the pocket of his shoulder and pulls the trigger. It’s like a dream, the way Ahzrukhal’s chest explodes. Red mist sprays through the air and settles across the bar as Ahzrukhal’s still-smiling face falls backwards. He hits the ground with a soft thump. 

Nobody is telling him to stop. Charon pumps the shotgun and shoots again, just to see Ahzrukhal’s body jump as the buckshot hits it. The dark feeling in his chest spreads even further as he watches a thin line of blood dribble out from between Ahzrukhal’s lips. He wants to shoot again, or take his body and dismember it slowly, or drag it out into the Wastes and let the crows rip it apart. He wants  _ so many things  _ for this bastard that’s made his life a nightmare for the past fifty years. It seems unreal that he’s truly lying there dead. 

Instead, he replaces the shotgun his back and finds his employer instead. Time to get a gauge of her and see how she’ll react. 

She looks… shocked. Makes sense for a settlement-born. She moves like she’s used to the Wasteland, but if she still reacts that way to a murder, she hasn’t been outside settlement walls for more than six months. 

Doesn’t really mean anything. Settlements hide just as many monsters as the wasteland does. And odds aren’t good of finding a decent person in somebody that had chose to leave a comfortable life for what the wasteland provides. She’ll show her colours soon enough. Charon’s not sure which is worse - getting an employer that’s already accepted their evil nature, or being the conduit through which they fall into it. Equally shitty options, maybe. 

“Was that...necessary?” his employer says, looking up at him. 

As if there’s any other way to answer this question. 

“Yes.” 

She looks back to the body, takes a step backwards involuntarily, and then commits to the movement. 

“Let’s go.” she says. 

And they do. 


End file.
